As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option is an information handling system. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements can vary between different applications, information handling systems can also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information can be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems can include a variety of hardware and software components that can be configured to process, store, and communicate information and can include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Information handling systems often make use of packet-switched networks, such as Internet Protocol (IP)-based networks, to transfer data. Typically, the data to be transmitted is segmented into a series of datagrams, or packets, of a fixed or variable size for transmission. However, many packet-switched networks utilize a series of separate links that connect two devices, and each link may be capable of a different maximum packet size (or maximum transmission unit (MTU)). Thus, a transmitting device typically employs a path MTU discovery process whereby a series of progressively-larger path MTU discovery messages are transmitted by the transmitting device until an error message is generated due to the path MTU discovery message exceeding the link MTU of a particular link in the communication path between the transmitting device and the receiving device. The transmitting device then identifies the size of this path MTU discovery message as the MTU for the communication path. In conventional systems, this path MTU discovery process is separately repeated by each transmitting device on the network or subnetwork, thereby resulting in the use of a considerable portion of the network resources solely for the determination of the MTUs for the various paths between transmitting devices and receiving devices.
The use of the same reference symbols in different drawings indicates similar or identical items.